JANUARY 31, 1936

I was reading this morning, the galley proof of the first few chapters of a book called "The Woman Speaker," by Eudora Ramsey Richardson, sent me by Mrs. Geline Bowman, Honorary President of the National Professional and Business Womens Clubs. This
book which will, I hope before long be published so that women in general can obtain
it, brought to my mind certain things we need to think about at present.

We have been passing laws and taking action in order to meet an emergency and as usually
happens in such cases, very few of us have sat down and figured out whether we want
to keep on indefinitely with these emergency measures, or whether we want to work
toward more final results.

Take the concrete problem of unemployment, which as a by-product has produced discrimination
against women, a tendency which we have seen in other nations grow to its natural
climax in restricting women in all the fields which they have labored for years to
enter. In Germany, I understand, highly trained scientific women are told their minds
are of no use to their country, only their ability to bear children and to run a house
economically and efficiently is of any real value.

We feel like saying "It can't happen here," but unless we face the fact that this is a by-product of the great question now before
us, we may wake up to find that we have gone the way of other nations who were unable
to solve this situation.

Has every human who desires it the right to work?

Should not the best brains of our country work on this problem?

There are three fundamentals for human happiness—work which will produce at least
a minimum of material security; love and faith. These things must be made possible
for all human beings, men and women alike.

Source Note:
Transcription created from a photocopy of a draft version of a My Day column instance
archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
My Day column draft dated January 30, 1936, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 30 January 1936, AERP, FDRL